August 29 (A Triple)

1533 - Atahualpa, last of the Inca rulers, was strangled under the orders of Spanish conqueror Francisco Pizarro.

The Incan Empire ended on this day, and the Spanish Empire assumed absolute control over much of South America...The natives should have never let the invaders get past the beach. Failing to follow this simple 'First Rule of Invasions' cost them their civilization.

1949 - The Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb.

It was going to happen eventually (between the German scientists and American traitors), but it was a sad day for the free people of the world when the Soviet Hell State proved it conquered the atom - becoming a peer competitor of the U.S.
 
2005 - Hurricane Katrina hit the U.S. Gulf Coast; primarily Louisiana and Mississippi. The death toll from Katrina reached over 1,000 and property damage estimates were in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Hurricane Katrina was a terrible natural catastrophe and a boondoggle of epic proportions on the state and federal level...Another of the many reasons I'll never understand why people put such trust in government to take care of them - which was (and still is) the case for far too many of the people in the entire country.

That said, it was also an event which was going to happen eventually, and when it did was going to cause massive suffering due to the fact that people who live below sea-level on coastlines are all but asking to be inundated by the ocean sooner or later.

30 (traditional date) - St. John, the Baptist, was beheaded.

John was the first Christian martyr...There were many more, including Christ himself in a few years.

70 - Romans burned the gates and entered the courtyard of the Second Temple of Jerusalem.

It was almost 1,900 years before the Jews reclaimed their home...It’s important they rebuild the Temple, in my opinion. Sadly, I don't see it happening.

It's also likely they'll have to perpetually fight for the survival of their modern state, too...Sadly, I don't see this ending well, either.

1842 - The Treaty of Nanjing was signed between the British and Chinese, ending the first Opium War. The treaty confirmed the ceding of Hong Kong to Britain.

This was the first of the 'Unequal Treaties' China signed with the various world powers. These treaties destroyed much of China’s sovereignty, and were known as unequal because China wasn’t treated as an equal partner by those it was forced to deal with.

Don't think for one minute the Chinese have forgotten these events.

1852 - The Latter Day Saints first published their doctrine of 'celestial marriage': polygamy. The Mormon Church maintained this teaching until the Manifest of 1890 (and later Congressional legislation) outlawed the practice.

Unfortunately for Mormons, this is an issue which continues to cause discomfort for most Americans with Mormonism...Many aspects of the LDS are misunderstood, or understood but disliked, but it is polygamy which sets it firmly apart from traditional American religious life - even though most modern Mormons aren't polygamists.

That said, if any 'two people who love each' can get married, why can't any three? four? five?, etc.

1862 – The Second Battle of Bull Run (Manassas):  Civil War.

The battle began on the 28th and ended on the 30th - but it was decided on the 29th.

General John Pope and 75,000 Federal troops were defeated by 55,000 Confederate troops under Generals Stonewall Jackson and James Longstreet in another Union debacle which had the possibility of ending the Civil War early on.

Unfortunately, President Lincoln hadn’t found the commanding general it would take to defeat the Confederates...He had to wait till 1863 before Grant stepped up at Vicksburg.

1944 - 15,000 American troops marched down the Champs Elysees in Paris as the French capital continued to celebrate its liberation from the Nazis:  WWII.

If 15 American troops marched through today, they’d be cackled and booed...Bunch of ungrateful scumbags. If it weren’t for Americans the French would be speaking German, or either bars of soap or lampshades.